Pro tools and Vienna Symphonic

[bluecroc]

Hello,

I have a Mbox and pro tools system on a Mac OSX 10.X. Can I still use the Vienna Symphonic libraries?

Thank you for your answer

Luca

[Paul]

Hello and welcome Luca!

Unfortunately we are experiencing quite some troubles in the RTAS development of the Vienna Instruments, so with the configuration you have I would suggest to take a look at our Horizon Series products, as you can use these with Kontakt 2 inside your Pro Tools system.

For more details you can also email me your questions under p.steinbauer@vsl.co.at [:)]

Best,

Paul

[Nick Batzdorf]

I'm out of town away from my rig right now, but can you run the stand-alone player outside PT? That would seem to be a better way to go anyway, since PT wants to give priority to audio tracks. There's a thread here about running stand-alone and plug-in versions of the Vienna Instruments player.

The more I play use stand-alone versions of instruments the more enthusiastic I am about it. Just the other way, for example, I wanted to compare two different Ivory Grand pianos. Logic shares samples between the two instances, so you can't do that - switch one and the other switches too. The solution was to load a stand-alone Ivory as well.

I think it's going to be the solution here, since it already lets you access about 7GB on a single machine.

[Tripit]

I haven't tried it yet, as matter of fact, I'm about to try it tonight.
I run a lot of VST plugs with a VST to RTAS wrapper. It works well, even better than
some RTAS plug version of the same plugs. I know a lot of guys are starting to run all the NI plugs in protools this way. The VST version seems to be more stable and the VST to RTAS wrapper from Fxexpansion is stable as well. I've had really good luck with this lately.
I post back later on how it goes.

[Tripit]

I loaded up several instances of VSI with level 2 presets last night using VST to RTAS on a DP set up using PT HD hardware. It worked fine, although I had a few issues with altiverb, that may or may not have been related to the VSI instances. I had to de-instance altiverb once or twice and put it back in and things went back to normal.

[tomhartman]

Would like to see someone report on VI being used with Pro Tools as host though....anyone?

Tom

[Tripit]

I'm using DAE 6.9 and Digi HD hardware with Dp, so when it comes to plugins, it's the same. If a plug works in DP with DAE, it works in Protools.

I got to 4 instances with about 1.8 gigs loaded (big presets) and I had to taken altiverb out - the CPU (g5 dual 2.0) was getting overloaded. I still had over a gig left in memory but the hit on the CPU and RTAS buggyness was making it unstable.

I ended up taking out 2 instances and keeping 2 and after that and it worked without any problems for the rest of night.

When I get a chance, I'll give it a try with Digi DAE 7.1 and VST to RTAS 2.0 which is suppose to be much more stable than the 1.6 version which I have to use with DAE 6.9

[cm]

this more or less confirms what has been reported with first tests from our VI RTAS version - the performance is simply unsatisfying and it looks like also in future only intel-macs can pull the load
christian

[Vagn Luv]

Cm, can you elaborate on what exactly is the problem with the RTAS implementation of the VI - is it some sort of ressource prioritizing in PT?

Why is the VI different from other manufacturers plugins that use streaming technology like native's Kontakt, MOTU's symphonic and Ethno and Synthogy's Ivory? [:)]

[cm]

vagn, i didn't discuss it with our devolopers in depth, but from what i can tell: whichever way you look at it, it simply lacks performance.
one reason might to be found highly probable in the fact that protools is a recording application at first and not a sequencer, another one is the huge amount of samples to be loaded and the short preload.
additionally the nature of RTAS is to process everything in the CPU and not in the PT hardware and the system load for the GUI (a general problem with OS X PPC) does it's own ...
i'd like to add this is not a technically 100% accurate statement but basically hits the nail. several aproaches to avoid at least some of these limitations are under investigation.
christian

[charlzj]

Uh-oh... I just bought Chamber Strings and Solo Strings specifically to use in Pro Tools on my dual 2.7G G5. (HD3 Accel, PT 7.1, OS 10.4.5) As soon as my ViennaKey arrives tomorrow I will be installing it. And I just bought and installed the FXpansion VST to RTAS adaptor... The research I did seemed to indicate that the adaptor would run VST plugs very smoothly in PT, so I thought the Vienna Instruments would be OK. Wish I had seen this thread before I took the leap! So CM, you're really saying this isn't going to work?

[rinky]

It seems we PT users do have options and workarounds without abandoning PT for DP or Logic, which is my preferrence at this point since the hardware "compatibility" issues are never gonna work out so I am being forced to stay within PT. Now, it would be nice to know before shelling out some money for whatever is needed (either slaving another mac or buying the VST to RTAS wrapper, buying RAX or Plogue Bidule as Paul suggested) that we can get additional feedbacks on users that are currently utilizing these options and are successful, for the benefit of people like me who really want to make this work. I was happy to use VSL's library using Gigasampler but since Appassionata and my other VI collections only work as a VI, then this move is essential and a must to us. Thanks again for all your tips!

Really sucks though that RTAS is not looking too good at this point for us PT users!

[charlzj]

FWIW, Here's my experience using Vienna Instruments with Pro Tools so far. The Fxpansion vst to rtas adaptor (which works great with other VST instruments) sees the Vienna Instrument, but is unable to convert it. So at this point I am forced to use the Vienna Instrument in standalone mode. I downloaded the Plogue Bidule, and was able to use it to send midi from PT to the standalone Vienna Instrument. However, for some reason, I cannot get audio into PT via Bidule's rewire. It shows up on my PT aux channel, but when I select it, no sound. At this point I am only able to get Vienna Instrument's audio into PT via my Mac G5's optical output into my PT 192 interface. By running another optical cable from the interface's output back to the Mac I was able to digitally sync the audio. This is done by opening the audio/midi setting in the Mac, matching the sample rate and bit depth to my Pro Tools session, and selecting "external" for the mac audio sync.

Any suggestions for getting Bidule's rewire working properly would be greatly appreciated. It appears to be working, but makes no sound.

To the makers of Vienna Instruments: PLEASE devote some attention to us Pro Tools users. We are a big market.


Pro Tools 7.1
HD3accel
192 I/O
Mac G5 dual 2.7G
OS 10.4.5

[Mystr Tiger]

@charlzj said:

FWIW, Here's my experience using Vienna Instruments with Pro Tools so far. The Fxpansion vst to rtas adaptor (which works great with other VST instruments) sees the Vienna Instrument, but is unable to convert it. So at this point I am forced to use the Vienna Instrument in standalone mode. I downloaded the Plogue Bidule, and was able to use it to send midi from PT to the standalone Vienna Instrument. However, for some reason, I cannot get audio into PT via Bidule's rewire. It shows up on my PT aux channel, but when I select it, no sound. At this point I am only able to get Vienna Instrument's audio into PT via my Mac G5's optical output into my PT 192 interface. By running another optical cable from the interface's output back to the Mac I was able to digitally sync the audio. This is done by opening the audio/midi setting in the Mac, matching the sample rate and bit depth to my Pro Tools session, and selecting "external" for the mac audio sync.

Any suggestions for getting Bidule's rewire working properly would be greatly appreciated. It appears to be working, but makes no sound.

To the makers of Vienna Instruments: PLEASE devote some attention to us Pro Tools users. We are a big market.


Pro Tools 7.1
HD3accel
192 I/O
Mac G5 dual 2.7G
OS 10.4.5

Hi charlzj , I am contemplating purchasing Vienna Instruments and had hoped to get started using it in PT. I have had problems recently with other VI's that surprised me. This might have happened since installing PT 7.3. I was not getting sound on an aux channel with, say Ivory, even though I could see it was receiving MIDI. After a while I somehow figured it out. The aux chan input was on 'no input'. As soon as I selected an input, like 1-2, Ivory made sound. This was not very intuitive to me since I did not expect there would be a need to select an input since Ivory was in the Insert path and was supplying the sound, not the 1-2 input. But, I guess PT requires something other than 'no input' to be selected. Anyway, I wondered if you might be having the same issue.

[charlzj]

Thank you Mystr Tiger. Yes, I have run into that before, so I definitely made sure to try assigning something to the input. I remain baffled.

Running Vienna Instruments as standalone is better than nothing, but a PITA, since I can only run one instance at a time. Building arrangements by sequencing one part at a time, then printing audio before going to the next part is making me crazy!

I received notice that Ilio is having a sale til Feb 15 - I'm wondering if I should invest further in these products. They sound so good, but I'm stuck trying to get this to work effectively in Pro Tools.

Is there a moderator in the house who could shed some light?

[Paul]

Hello charlzj,

there is no RTAS version available yet, although I´d love to tell you something different.

Honestly, the best way to use the Vienna Instruments in your setup is to get a slave computer for your samples. This way you will establish a reliable workflow that also allows you to use orchestral templates that you can load on a seperate computer.

Hope that helps.

Best regards,

Paul

[Tripit]

@charlzj said:

FWIW, Here's my experience using Vienna Instruments with Pro Tools so far. The Fxpansion vst to rtas adaptor (which works great with other VST instruments) sees the Vienna Instrument, but is unable to convert it. So at this point I am forced to use the Vienna Instrument in standalone mode.

I was able to use VSI with Fxpansion VST to RTAS with no problem. It wrapped the plug with no problems. This was with Fx VST to RTAS version 1.6 (for DAE 6.9) I would asume that it should work the same with Fx VST to RTAS version 2.0 for DAE 7.X.

[Paul]

Hi,

it´s true that you can open the Vienna Instruments in a wrapper, and depending on your machine you can open up to 3-5 instances, which is simply not enough in our opinion....

Best,

Paul

[charlzj]

Thanks to all who have responded!

I finally managed to get the VST wrapper to convert VSI to RTAS, and it works... sort of. Some annoying stuck note and dropped note bugginess, weird velocity response anomolies, erroneous release sample triggering, crashing,etc. And that's with only 2 or 3 instatiations.

I know, I should buy a second computer, run VSI on a different platform than Pro Tools... I wasn't counting on the additional expense, hassle, and complexity of another computer, interface, rewiring and re-configuring my rack, adding and learning a second software platform program, etc, etc. Yikes!! '[[:|]]' I'm not doing big film cues here, just string parts on pop records.

Additional non-RTAS-related problems (I will also post these to another, more relevant thread):

REPEATED disappearance of licenses. I've repaired disk permissions, re-installed licenses, dragged the plug-in out of and back into my VST plug-in folder, shutdown and restarted more times than I can count.

Save button is grayed out, so I can't save anything. And repairing disk permissions did not fix the problem.

Love the sounds, but the software is making me lose what little hair I have left... '[*-)]'

[charlzj]

Thanks to user Simon Ravn, I can save now. Deleting the "Vienna Instruments Custom Data" folder and creating a new one fixed that problem.